This weekend's Barron's offers a look at what's in store for North American railroad stocks. Other featured articles discuss changing oil stock dividends and potential results from a major media merger. "Railroad Stocks Could Run Out of Steam" by Bill Alpert suggests that cost-cutting is boosting profits for North American railroads, but declining freight volumes and increasing competition from truckers may pull the brakes on growth at the likes of CSX Corporation (NASDAQ: CSX).

Making a popular TV series into a big-screen movie used to be a rarity. Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” begets Alan Alda’s. But back in 1979, my first Christmas-movie-madness season with the AJC, one such, um, miracle loomed ahead. Thanks to a determined and dedicated fan base, after disappearing from sight for a decade, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was upon us.

Another niche streaming service is about to hit the market, this time from BET Networks and Tyler Perry Studios. BET+ will launch on Sept. 19. The ad-free platform will cost $9.99 per month. The subscription video-on-demand service will debut with more than a thousand hours of programming, including original series; Perry's movies, TV shows and stage plays; and content from BET and other Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB) brands.

A new home in the city holds big adventures, laughs and love around every corner in Nickelodeon’s new original animated series The Casagrandes, premiering Monday, Oct. 14, at 1:30 p.m. (ET/PT). A spinoff of Nick’s animated hit The Loud House, The Casagrandes tells the story of 11-year-old Ronnie Anne who moves to the city with her mom and older brother to live with their big, loving family, the Casagrandes.

Kenan Thompson, who grew up in College Park, told The Washington Post he has no plans to end his historic run on Saturday Night Live and will also soon be taking an even more prominent role on the NBC network of shows.

Shares of CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. are off in premarket trading Tuesday after Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger grew more bearish on the prospects for the combined company once their merger goes through. He lowered his price target on CBS's stock to $35 from $46 and on Viacom's stock to $21 from $27. "Despite hundreds of years of trying, it remains impossible to have one's cake and eat it too," Juenger wrote. "Worse, we worry ViacomCBS will bake two cakes that nobody wants to eat." He argues that ViacomCBS will face hard choices as it tries to build out a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business while still competing in linear television. In Juenger's view, shows like "The Daily Show" hold little "library value" as viewers don't want to watch old episodes of news-oriented comedy shows, meaning that ViacomCBS wouldn't be able to draw consumers to a DTC offering by promising an archive of older seasons. If ViacomCBS were to drop new episodes on its streaming service at the same time as they aired on linear TV, Juenger worries that would " very quickly cannibalize [the company's] distribution and affiliate fee pricing." Viacom shares are down 14% in the past three months, while CBS shares have fallen 13%. The S&P 500 has risen 6.6% in that time.

CBS (NYSE: CBS.A, CBS) and Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) today jointly announced that Julia Phelps has been named Executive Vice President, Chief Communications and Corporate Marketing Officer of ViacomCBS, effective upon closing of the deal to combine CBS and Viacom. Phelps will report to Bob Bakish, President and Chief Executive Officer, Viacom, who will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of ViacomCBS upon close.

CBS (NYSE:CBS.A and CBS) and Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) today jointly announced that Anthony DiClemente has been named to the position of Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, ViacomCBS, effective upon closing of the deal to combine CBS and Viacom. DiClemente will report to Christina Spade, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, CBS Corporation, who will serve as Chief Financial Officer of the combined company, as previously announced. In his new role, DiClemente will coordinate and oversee outreach strategies to the investment community.

It’s time to pull up the Thinking Chair and follow the paw prints as Blue and her crew return in Nickelodeon’s brand-new preschool series Blue’s Clues & You!, debuting Monday, Nov. 11, at 9 a.m. (ET/PT). Steve Burns (Steve) and Donovan Patton (Joe) will reprise their roles in the series premiere, “Meet Josh!,” and help new live-action host Josh (Joshua Dela Cruz) and the audience solve their first game of Blue’s Clues.

MTV and Save the Music—a non-profit organization that has launched over 2,000 music programs within schools across the country—today announced a first-of-its-kind program supporting electronic music production to develop students’ creative and technical talents and reflect how modern music is being made today. The grant, which was developed in partnership with Pharrell Williams’ creative collective i am OTHER and Arizona State University (ASU), is named the J Dilla Music Tech Grant after the legendary producer who worked with De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Common and Erykah Badu, among others, and whose revolutionary approach to making beats continues to inspire artists more than a decade after his death.